Less than a week after a New Orleans suburbanite petitioned the White House to allow Louisiana to secede from the United States, petitions from seven states have collected enough signatures to trigger a promised review from the Obama administration.
By 6:00 a.m. EST Wednesday, more than 675,000 digital signatures appeared on 69 separate secession petitions covering all 50 states, according to a Daily Caller analysis of requests lodged with the White House’s “We the People” online petition system.
A petition from Vermont, where talk of secession is a regular feature of political life, was the final entry.
Petitions from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas residents have accrued at least 25,000 signatures, the number the Obama administration says it will reward with a staff review of online proposals.
The Texas petition leads all others by a wide margin. Shortly before 9:00 a.m. EST Wednesday, it had attracted 94,700 signatures. But a spokesperson for Gov. Rick Perry said Tuesday afternoon that he does not support the idea of his state striking out on its own.
“Gov. Perry believes in the greatness of our Union and nothing should be done to change it. But he also shares the frustrations many Americans have with our federal government,” according to a statement from the governor’s office.
A backlash Monday night saw requests filed with the White House to strip citizenship rights from Americans who signed petitions to help states secede.
And in a similar nose-thumbing aimed at Texas’ conservative majority, progressives from the liberal state capital of Austin responded Monday with a petition to secede from their state if Texas as a whole should decide to leave the Union.
Late Tuesday a second group of Texans, this one from Houston, lodged their own White House petition. Secession-minded Texans, they wrote, “are mentally deficient and [we] do not want them representing us. We would like more education in our state to eradicate their disease.”
Houstonian “Kimberly F” — The White House does not provide last names — submitted the petition. She told TheDC in an email that ”[w]e need both sides presented, or we all look like a bunch of fools.”
A group from El Paso, too, wants no part of an independent Texas. “Allow the city of El Paso to secede from the state of Texas,” their petition reads. “El Paso is tired of being a second class city within Texas.t smaller petitions like theirs are a political side show of a political side show. One effort, aimed at Missourians, called for a nationwide catered pizza party to celebrate when the Show Me State left the U.S. (RELATED: Pizza party! White House petition silliness gets cheesy)
States whose active petitions have not yet reached the 25,000 signature threshold include Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
(more at)
http://dailycaller.com/2012/11/14/white-house-secede-petitions-reach-660000-signatures-50-state-participation/#ixzz2CFqJxw5E
Rare complete solar eclipse captured on film in Australia
A rare, complete solar eclipse dominated northern Australian skyline on Wednesday, sending part of the country into complete darkness.
It was the first such eclipse in Australia in 10 years and the last one expected until 2028.
And the moment was almost ruined, as dark clouds hung over the horizon in the days leading up to the eclipse.
"Immediately before, I was thinking, 'Are we gonna see this?' And we just had a fantastic display — it was just beautiful," Terry Cuttle of the Astronomical Association of Queensland, told the Associated Press. "And right after it finished, the clouds came back again. It really adds to the drama of it."
An estimated 50,000 spectators were reported to have traveled to Australia to view the eclipse, according to estimates, with hotels saying they had been booking reservations for more than three years. The 95-mile shadow began just after dawn and lasted for about two minutes, with a partial eclipse being visible from as far away as east Indonesia and southern parts of Chile.
In Australia, the eclipse brought out fleets of spectators seeking unique vantage points, with an estimated 40 hot air balloons filling the sky and a flotilla of cruise ships, sailboats and yachts staking out viewing points near the Great Barrier Reef, according to news.com.au.
"We gambled everything — drove through the rain and didn't even know if the balloon was going to go up," said Hank Harper, who flew his family out from Los Angeles, to view the eclipse from the comfort of a hot air balloon. "It was everything I could have hoped for."
You can watch a video of the eclipse taking place below:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/rare-complete-solar-eclipse-captured-australia-video-031307741.html
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